


ain't no sense in feeling lonely

by chaosy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, hot cop derek hale, really vague sex references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2152683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosy/pseuds/chaosy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek gets offered a job at the station. That's where it starts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no sense in feeling lonely

**Author's Note:**

> for the marvellous olivia, whom i'm meeting in a few days!!!  
> anyway did anyone say draeden? because guess who's writing more of that. my god i love this pairing.  
> for questions/requests/salutations go to martinisms.tumblr.com :)

Braeden remembers the exact day when it all went downhill. The day that the Sheriff showed up at Derek's door and told him that they had an opening down at the station.

She likes the Sheriff fine, but _god fucking dammit_.

Derek, naturally, passes the physical and mental tests with flying colours, has a squeaky clean record (“I was _acquitted_ , Jesus”) and the other officers take an absolute shine to him. And all of a sudden Derek is some upstanding pillar of the community, helping little old ladies across the street and breaking up teenage parties but of course, all the kids adore him because he gives them enough time to run back home and always decides to “let it slide, just this once” when they've got alcohol.

Hell, he even said to one of them, “it's fine, I was young once too, you know”.

Derek isn't even fucking _thirty_.

There are some benefits to the whole deputy thing. Braeden practically rips him out of the uniform first time she sees it. And Derek loves pretending to give Scott and Stiles tickets and annoying the hell out of them. She hasn't gotten a parking ticket since he started up at the station, too.

“I had breakfast with the Sheriff today,” he says one time. “I thought Stiles was going to have an aneurysm when he got downstairs.” His tone is gleeful and Braeden can't help but smile, because she loves this stupid bastard, upstanding pillar of the community or not.

And she knows that it's good for Derek to get out of the fucking loft, spend some time with people his own age and not surround himself with werewolves and death all the damn time. But when poker nights with _Jordan_ extend to helping _Lindsey_ weed her garden which also become Friday night dinners at deputy _Gold's_ for Shabbat which soon encompass Sunday jogs with _Daniel_ and--

Braeden realises when she comes home to the loft empty and cold that she's seen Derek twice in the last week.

He's not cheating on her. She knows that. Derek's smart enough to know that she'd figure it out in a second if he was fucking someone else. He also knows that she'd probably cut off his fingers and make them into a wind chime.

She just has that sinking feeling, the one that comes when she knows she has to leave soon.

Derek is, believes in and craves for normal. He buys from the whole foods shop and organises his socks by colour and hell, the guy even likes babies. She knows he'll probably want some one day. One day _soon_ because fucking _Lindsey_ says that you _can't wait forever, sweetie, you've got to be able to enjoy as much as your life with them as possible. Really, kids are the best thing in the world_.

Braeden hates Lindsey.

But the point is that she's not normal. She still does mercenary jobs, but she knows that at the end of the day she can come home to Beacon Hills and Derek will be there. Derek seeks a family, stability, a place where the monsters aren't knocking at his door. Braeden only knows how to kill, survive, repeat and get paid after.

So he has Shabbat dinner with the Golds and poker nights with Jordan and coffees with Lindsey and jogs with Daniel, he gives tickets and breaks up domestics and keeps the local hooligans in line. Braeden goes out, kills for money and comes back again.

She's on her way back one day, after a gruelling three-day job in Nevada when she hears a siren behind her and thinks _oh, joy_.

So she may have been coasting above the speed limit. Thirty miles above the speed limit. Whatever, it's not like the highway is busy at this time in the morning.

“Do you know how fast you were going?” the officer says and Braeden laughs, tugging off her helmet and Derek's grin meets her, brighter than the rising sun.

“You gonna give me a ticket, officer?” she retorts and Derek laughs. He swoops in and kisses her, lifts her clean off of the bike and sets her down on the ground next to it. Braeden smiles against his mouth and thinks _shit, don't leave_.

Derek goes through his regular routine of post-job care as they talk by the side of the highway. Hello, are you okay, are you hurt, did the job go ok, I missed you. He's a fucking sap. Braeden loves it.

He must notice her expression, though, because he crowds her up against the side of the bike. “What's up?” he asks, his voice quiet, hands settling gently at her waist. He doesn't box her in. He realised pretty quick that she doesn't like being held down. It's too much of a reminder of things she doesn't particularly want to think about whilst kissing.

“Not a big deal,” she replies back, because it's not, because they're solid and they have been for a long time now. They've had bigger bumps in the road than this.

“It always is, if it's important to you,” Derek tells her. God, he's so cute, has that wide-eyed concerned look on his face. Derek is much more expressive when he's with her. He's quite quiet, with the pack and with strangers, but with her his grins are blinding and his laughter is loud. It makes her feel fucking special.

She butts their foreheads together, her hands sliding up his arms to curl around his shoulders. “Mhm. I, uh. Missed you. On the job, sure, but in general. You're hardly around anymore, you're always having brunch with the Sheriff or jogging with Daniel--”

“David.”

“Same thing,” she says, flippantly. They tell each other when they have a worry. It's taken them a while but eventually they figured _hey, you know what's pretty great? Communication_. So she tells Derek this, although the shit eating grin on his face isn't quite the reaction she wants.

“You're jealous,” he says, and he's fucking delighted, the bastard.

Braeden frowns, shakes her head. “No. I'm not jealous. It's good that you have friends your own age, for once.” Scott and Stiles are great kids, but they're _kids_. Scott's an Alpha werewolf but Braeden remembers his awkward shuffling with his girlfriend and that hug in the desert. Teenagers, she thinks.

Derek just laughs and presses her back into the bike a little. “You're so jealous. That's what this has been about. _Brae_.”

Braeden punches him lightly in the arm. Derek drags her in and kisses her, sweet even though she's not sweet.

“Having a normal social life is fun,” Derek tells her as he smacks a kiss to her jaw. Braeden rolls her eyes but she slips her arms around him, holds him tighter. The highway is pretty dead so it's not like anyone is going to notice a couple of people hugging on the side of the road.

“But,” Derek continues. “It's not the best thing in my life. That's when I get to be with you.”

Braeden, despite her best efforts, blushes. Derek notices because he snorts and kisses her cheek where the red is. “That's so romantic,” she says. “I love you.”

They both go kind of still, then, because they haven't said that yet. It's not like it's a big deal that needs flowers and a fancy dinner for it but still. They just haven't quite gotten round to it.

“I love you too,” Derek says quietly, just a little awed, and kisses her slowly. Braeden opens her mouth and lets his tongue inside and Derek's hands tighten on her waist and it kind of all goes to shit there.

They end up fucking in the squad car. Derek parks behind some greenery so they won't be seen and takes his sweet time, kisses her a lot and whispers endearments against her neck. Normally Braeden hates that kind of shit, scorns those couple scenes in movies because _please_. She and Derek are a unit but she's not going to blast The Smiths whilst they're together and giggle as they do a song and dance in a supermarket or something.

She pets Derek's hair when they're both relatively clean. He rests his head on her chest as they lie on the back seat and her fingers drift through the dark strands. “Come to poker night,” he murmurs. “And dinner with the Golds. They're nice. I'd ask you to come jogging with me but you never get up early on Sundays.”

“Rightly so,” Braeden mutters back at him but she's smiling. The squad car is cramped as hell and their legs are sort of bunched together and they're both a little sweaty and she's pretty sure that her boots are still outside the car but it's the best feeling in the world. “I don't want to be a part of every single little thing, you know,” she tells him, kisses his forehead. “I just didn't want you to miss out on any more target practise.”

Derek presses his face against her shoulder and laughs and laughs. Braeden laughs too and thinks, _I love you_.

–

“How the hell are you so good at this,” Jordan is saying, as she drags the money towards her. Derek lays his hand on her thigh, fingers just brushing the inseam and Braeden hums. He is _so_ eating her out later.

“I'm just lucky,” she says sweetly. The reality is that Jordan has really obvious tells, Lindsey is shit at poker, Daniel's ring finger twitches when he's bluffing and Braeden learned to count cards when she was eleven.

Derek kisses her temple, slings an arm around her shoulders and subtly shows her his hand. She smooths her pinkie over an eyebrow to say _duly noted_ and lays down a straight flush.

“Are you fucking kidding?” Lindsey's face is a picture. Braeden just grins at her brightly. _Derek and I will have the kids talk if we want to_ , she thinks. _Now fuck off_.

Instead, she just says, “I'm on a winning streak, I guess. I'm not usually so lucky.”

Lie. She always wins at poker. Derek's the only one who knows she's counting cards and he can't say shit because he loves her.

“You're perceptive, though. You've recognised everyone's tell,” Jordan says. “And we see you at the gym a lot. You ever think of joining the force?”

There's quiet, then. Braeden tilts her head to the side and considers it, side-eyes Derek, who grins at her.

–

A month later, Stiles mutters that he hates everything as she writes him a ticket.

 


End file.
